Thursday, 27 October 2011

My five year old son Will asked me to carve a Yoda pumpkin this year. This year in our home there has been a big focus on becoming a Jedi Knight, so who better to sit atop our porch glowing with the force than Yoda himself. Little did I know that carving Yoda out of a pumpkin would be so challenging. Will was not impressed. I think we need to have a little talk about Jedi diplomacy.

I think our Jedi pumpkin is a cross between Yoda, a Gremlin and an Angry Bird?HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

It was a fun day at our home last Sunday full of marvelous sweets of all kinds. For my Son's fifth Birthday we had a an "Old Fashioned Candy Shop Craft" Party. The party's decor included my "Candy Shoppe Sweets" decoration line that I sell in my Etsy shop and Niccola Luke's (one of my favorite Etsy seller's) exquisitely delicious Felt Desserts whom I will be talking about in my next post. I was like a kid in a candy shop, filling various glass containers with an array of sweets including lollipops, gumballs, brightly colored hard candy and ribbon candy, in awe of their colorful yumminess.

I try to buy all of my party and craft supplies from Etsy seller's to support small or home-based businesses. Etsy is an endless resource for unbelievably charming supplies "new" and "vintage". A few of my favorite seller's that I buy my supplies from are; In The Clear, Glitter And Kitsch, Twelve Legs Curiosities and 32 North Supplies. And I have to mention The Daiso, an amazing Japanese Department store of sorts filled with everything that you could image Kawaii from the most charming stationary sets to adorable sewing and craft supplies, did I mention that everything at The Daiso is $2.00.

The decor party wouldn't be complete without a Candy Shop themed vest made by mom.

A Birthday Party with five year olds can be chaos without planned activities so I set up three craft stations for the kids to create Candy Shop inspired crafts. I set little glassine candy bags aside for them to keep their crafts in once they were done. Each time a child finished a craft they could help themselves to a small gift placed at the station.

The first station, "Sweet Spot #1" was to decorate a Candy Shop shaped cookie with colorful candies. I made simple little candy shop cookies out of graham crackers and placed bowls of candy and royal icing on the table for the kids to decorate with.

To keep the candy crafts on the healthier side I incorporated many yummy organic candies as well. Including their sweet gift wrapped like a bonbon in tissue paper of an organic lollipop.

"Sweet Spot #2" was a bubblegum themed craft. I made small tags out of one of my "Candy Shoppe Sweets" illustrations and tied a little piece of baker's twine through each one and set up small polka dot cupcake liners filled with small colorful pompoms and bottles of white glue for the children to embellish the gift tags.

The small gift for station # 2 was a candy stripe paper straw embellished with a glittered gumball machine gift tag.

For "Sweet Spot #3" the children could decorate a paper Candy Shop decoration / Cake Topper with mini candy and cake stickers. After finishing this craft they could choose from a garland of paper cones filled with tiny polka dot boxes. ( an organic hard candy was inside).

After the crafts it was time to open presents and eat cake.

For their last little goodie I made little Cupcake Soaps for the children to take home and wash all of that yummy crafty stickiness off.